Welcome from Paul

Camp Penuel Costa Rica has a specific focus to give children ages 7-11 the opportunity to know their heavenly Father through Christ Jesus and the abundant life that he offers through the power and love of the Holy Spirit. The Vision is to rally a multi-ethnic team of support to work towards providing facilities of excellence and diversity so that each child can have a wealth of new, safe, and fun experiences that they will remember for their lifetime, but more importantly, that are God-anointed and forever will change their lives for good.

September 2014 - Solar Energy Project

God has blessed us over the years with many people who have come along side of us and helped us to develop the camp. Now, through the initiative of a team of four Costa Rican electrical engineers and a man from the States, we recently formed an engineering team to develop a proposal for establishing a fully self-sufficient and independent energy system for the camp from start to finish.

This project will allow us to inspire and involve many people, especially youth, in learning how a micro-energy system is made from start to finish. This will allow the camp to achieve the following goals:

Make us more self-sufficient. No longer will we need to depend on gasoline or diesel fuel generators to produce power for pumping water and the many other needs, especially lighting, that we have at the camp.

Long-term effects.

Our money for energy needs will be spent on expanding an already existing system, not on buying more and more fuel and newer generators to meet our energy needs.

Our maintenance costs for this system will be much, much lower than the cost, for example, of paying a monthly electric bill, if the power company had service available in our area.

Lithium ion and other battery technology is expanding rapidly. These are the storage units for solar and other alternative energy sources.

We can expand in the future easily to connect other alternative energy sources such as more solar panels and wind power to our system, once it is established.

We can inspire and help others learn how a micro energy system works.

We will not be polluting the environment with noise or chemical pollution by eliminating fossil fuel generators.

To start up this project with a firm with expertise in this area, we would be looking at an expense of over $100,000. However, since we have the technical expertise in Costa Rica committed to this project, we will be able to do the initial phase of this project for $30,000. This will allow us to produce between 3,500 and 4,000 watts, which will give us a sufficient energy supply to run our camp.

In the short-term, I believe that we can raise this money in the upcoming months of the year 2014 to pay for this project.

I would like you to join me in praying and believing and acting so that this project can become a reality.

With this project in place, we will be able to increase the number of campers and activities that we do because it will be much easier to power up our camp with this system in place. Currently, we serve 700 to 800 campers per year, and this will move us in the direction of receiving many more campers annually and surpass the 1,000 campers per year mark in the not too distant future and continue to provide the best for these children who deserve the best that we can give.

May the Lord bless you and thank you for taking time to review the enclosed file. Please note that the numbers (costs) at the end will be higher as they are based on a 2,500 watt system and our goal is to produce closer to 4,000 initial watts.

God bless you for your partnership with us, not only in this project, but for all that the Lord has called us to do!

Paul

P.S. The goal of the solar project is to order the necessary supplies this fall (2014) and begin construction in early 2015. In order to do this project we would like you to prayerfully consider a donation of any amount above any donation you normally give on a yearly basis to help make this positive project possible.

If you chose to contribute to the solar project send your contribution to:

Comments

Darlene Carpenter
Monday, 29 September 2014

Solar energy!

Hi Paul, so excited to hear about this, Praise God for the work He is doing and love hearing your goals of being self-sustaining. God keeps growing Camp Penuel because you honor Him! Will send $ to support!
Darlene Carpenter (maiden name: Listhartke)

RE:Solar energy!

Darlene, Thank you for staying in touch with me and the camp. One day, in God's timing, hopefully you'll be able to come down and experience the camp first-hand. Say hello to your Mom and family for me. Paul